Lessons in Sewing: Visible Mending

 

What? Sewing by hand? On Purpose? And it isn't even embroidery or cross stitch? What IS the world coming to???

A friend and I have been reading up on three rather connected things: visible mending, Sashiko and Boro. All hand stitching techniques that create new from old. That repair fabrics with the addition of other fabrics. That combine to lengthen the life and beauty of fabrics, and garments, or even make something new from them. Refashion them. Create art from them (at least at some level).

One of the ideas is to extend garment life and usefulness, and create less fabric/textile waste. I'm for that.

Another of the ideas is to create new from old (sometimes even very old) by combining fabrics from various sources with hand stitched elements. Creating unique pieces, and interesting elements, and possibly art. I say possibly art, because I think art includes elements of practice, and vision that every piece may not achieve, but still doesn't lessen the utility and interest of the effects of the crafting.

And the idea of creating art in the every-day is very interesting to me as well. 

There are other philosophical elements to this practice, not the least of which is a form of meditative practice achieved through comfortable repetition of a manual task. It can be achieved through the act of a hand craft like crochet, or knit, or hand sewing. I think that is interesting. I think that I can and have achieved a bit of that mindfulness during crochet, as I read about it with the hand sewing texts. I will share those books in the future, as I become more familiar with them, and can share what I am learning by reading and using them.

At the moment, though, here's my starting place. How convenient that Raine tore a pair of her pants. I offered to try the visible mending technique to fix them. I told Raine that she may or may not like the results, and that was OK. If I mended them, and she didn't like the result, she was no worse off than with the torn pants. I was only out the effort of the attempt, and a craft needs practice. 

This was what I was working with

These pants are a comfy flannel pair. Not new, so the fabric is somewhat worn. If you have sewn and mended, you know that makes repairing them questionable. Oh, sure you can sew the seam again, but how long will that last? Is it worth the effort? Raine agreed to let me try out the visible mending. I did not have more of this flannel, but the book I was reading was very much about using denim for the hand stitching, and I had some old jeans. I made a large patch, which I put on the inside of the tear so it wouldn't look like a big sign on the front of the pants. That's just not a good look.

I used a sharp embroidery needle, and  a fairly small type of embroidery thread. A thimble and a pair of pliers were both very useful as well. To save my hands, I used the thimble to push the needle and the pliers to pull it. I could take several stitches at a time that way. I used a light blue, a cream and a rust colored thread for the rows of stitches. I didn't worry about them being straight or perfect. I just wanted to get them done, really. It probably took me about 5 hours to get to the point where I had Raine try the pants on to see how they looked and felt. They were not perfect, and I took a couple more hours to stitch up some edits and finish up. 

This is the pants with the mend

The shape of the patch was really pretty visible when she wore it in the front, but when she turned the pants around, the effect was much less visible. The denim was just too heavy with the flannel, and next time, I will do a better job of picking a patch fabric. I hope. Since the pants are elastic waisted, and the pockets are cargo pockets, the pants will do OK when she wears them "backwards." So, they are mended to usefulness again. That is a success, even though it is not a perfect success. Not bad for a first try, I think.

The mending stitches are visible here

So here are some take-aways from this experience. The multiple rows of stitching helped incorporate the two fabrics, even though it was not perfect because of the weight difference between them. I also think that the stitching will help spread the stresses of wear across a larger area of the fabric to help the more worn areas last longer than they would if I had just resewn the seam that tore. Finally, while this example of visible mending is certainly not art, I do think the lines of stitching create interest. They aren't super obvious, and I wasn't trying to make them that way, but there is movement there that perhaps helps the patch blend in with this flannel fabric, which has a lot going on.

I am still thinking about the time it takes to sew this by hand VS sewing on the machine. I'm not saying I don't like it, but it is something for me to think about...

 

Christmas Gnome Ornaments

 

My latest crochet obsession. It all started with a search on Etsy, and some patterns I bought and downloaded (and I may have to go back for seconds because SQUEEEEE!!). It reminds me of ALL the birds I crocheted a couple of years ago, and I even pulled out my tub of cotton yarn to use on these guys. When I did the stacking ring toys, the sheep I did in the cotton yarn was much more stable with the stuffing than the acrylic ones, so I looked through for Christmassy skeins.

Snowgnomes!!!

I've added string to these to hang them, as they are intended to be ornaments. I got a few different trim things to use for hangers, but I'm not satisfied with those, so more experimentation will follow. I love the hats. I love the huge carrot noses. I love the little twiggy arms. And this is only ONE of the patterns that I got!

There are also  some gnome nutcracker ornaments, and Santa gnomes with trees for hats. But I had to start with the snowgnomes. Can you blame me?

Two versions of this tall hat

Besides the Christmas flavored snowgnomes, I am going to make some Wintery snowgnomes as well and some that are just perfectly happy to hang around to make someone smile. Like me. They definitely make me smile!

Scattered Fans For Christmas

 

Now that the gifts have been given, I can talk about the fans some more.

scattered fan fabric box

I was inspired by one of my vintage quilting magazines to scatter fans on my new purse, but I discovered that there were more fans in my gift giving projects this year.

This became...

  

scattered fans purse

For instance, I started on some fabric boxes, and found that the fans still were fun. I wanted to give the impression of a fan, more than an actual fan block, so I worked with some beautiful blues for my sister in law.

Fan in blue

My niece is getting more greens, but some beautiful pops of color as well. (Blues can be beautiful pops of color, even within other blues, right?) On these boxes, I trimmed the fans in bias tape. I also gave peeks of the background fabrics, something that I liked from building the purse. 

A fan, and also, some scattered fan pieces on the left

I didn't really worry about making a perfect fan for these boxes, but I sure had fun with the piecing.

more pieces for the box sides

I couldn't resist leaving a little of the fuzzy selvage

One of the reasons I got drawn to the scattered fans was because my mother left me a fan quilt that she had been working on before she lost too much of her eyesight. I have decided to turn those fans into wall hangings, and this year I finished one for one of my brothers.

fans in a circle make a Dresden plate

I admit that if I had more practice with stippling, I would have quilted the blue areas. I am learning more about quilting by working on the Charitable Crafting quilts, but I have not practiced that. Yet. Still, I was very happy to find the backing fabric (it folds over the top to make a slot for a hanger for the piece) that had a vintage feel to it, to go with the vintage fabrics that my mom used. (well, they weren't so vintage when she was using them...)

The best part of that wall hanging is the feeling of working with my mom on a project that I get when I'm putting it together. I hope that my brother will also get memories of both of us in his turn. 

While I have more fan blocks to turn into wall hangings, I am taking a break for a bit, and moving on to other projects for a while. I feel like those fans are going to show up again, though. Somewhere. Some time.

Stack and Slash Placemats

 

I took a class with one of our local quilt guilds. A friend of me, who belongs to that guild invited me, and I happily accepted that invitation. I'm learning about quilting, and practicing various techniques for piecing and building finished items. I thought, hey! a placemat is something I could accomplish!

This is one of the finished placemats

The project turns a set of fat quarters - plus a yard of fabric and about that amount of batting - into a set of 4 placemats. I stacked my fat quarters, and slashed them with the rotary cutter. the next step was to put the middle section on the bottom of the stack then sew those three sections together. Then, slash a section from each side, and again, move that strip to the bottom of the stack, and then sew the pieces together for each placemat.

Finally, I pinned the layers together, and did some stitching to quilt the layers, and then turn the edges of the back to the front and sewed them down to complete the placemats.

I really enjoyed playing with these fabrics, BUT I don't know many people who actually use placemats. I do think the technique (with some modifications) would make some beautiful fabric boxes, though. Or, now that I think about it, mug rugs, which would be smaller that these placemats. I AM really glad I got to use these coordinating fat quarter fabrics together, I think they are beautiful! I didn't take nearly enough pictures, though.

I Learned a New Crochet Technique: Corner to Corner

 I have a friend who makes some amazing crocheted items like scarves and baby blankets. She combines some beautiful yarn, with a cool technique that I had not seen used before. She asked me if I wanted her to teach me how to do it, and of course I said "Yes!!" I probably added "please" to my reply. At least I hope I did.

My learning samples

As you can see, there are two basic techniques, both are variations of granny squares. If you can make a granny square, you can do these. The thing that takes practice is how you advance them. I really like the texture in the smaller sample, and I've worked on that one first. I started simple, with a scarf from the same yarn I made the samples from. 

Here's the scarf in progress

Child sized blue scarf for donating

The technique makes stairstep rows, alternating the orientation of the stitches. I really like the texture it creates. I have found that I like to experiment with texture in crochet, so I was really glad to add this to my "toolbox." Yes, I did a single crochet edging at the ends to be a finish on it. I also made a second scarf, experimenting with some different yarns for a stripe.

Nice diagonal stripes

Since I carried the pink thread along one side of the scarf, I felt like I needed to give it an edging because that yarn showed. 

Currently, I am making a baby blanket from a fuzzy yarn that I found at Cruces Creatives. The yarn is variegated, and I wasn't sure how the colors would pool (sometimes I find the pooling disappointing). I thought about starting as a scarf, but I worried whether I would be able to pull the fuzzy yarn out to start over, so I just went for it!

This is the yarn. Pink Sands

And here is how the blanket is coming along:

I am liking the pastel stripes

This is a little over one skein of the yarn (they are not big skeins). I have three more skeins, so I will continue to increase until I get into the third, skein and then I will start to decrease. It seems to be squaring up pretty well, even, so far.

I'm glad to learn something new!!

Scattered Fans Purse

 

Once upon a time, I made myself a purse. A few years later, I made another one. And now, I've made another.

scattered fans purse (without the hardware)

This purse came from a collision of crafting ideas. First "my" purse. I wasn't happy with the purses I could find in the store. I'm picky, because (in great part) I'm not really a fan of purses. BUT, I need to carry stuff, and take it with me. Generally, it's too much stuff to put in my pockets (if the clothing even HAS pockets), much less carry in my hands. What if I need to wait for something? Yeah, there better be a book in there somewhere, too. At least part of the time. But, I don't want a big purse either, to fill up and get heavy.

So, I made myself a purse. I used some black denim and I used the heck out of it.

Not a big fan of the distressed look

It didn't wear as well as I would have liked. First the strap wore out. I was held together by the threads I used to sew it with before I replaced it with this woven belting. THAT lasted long enough to add to the second purse! I also didn't like how that denim just wore out. I was really disappointed with that. Plus the purse was a little smaller than I found I wanted.

The second purse I made was also denim, but a different piece. 

Oh, look how new and clean it looks!

I had fun making this purse, playing with the fabrics on the inside, making pockets for stashing small stuff, adding hardware like clips to hold my keychains out of the way. This purse did a good job, for a long time, but eventually, it also wore out.

Well loved/ well used

It has seen better days

Definitely time for a new purse. I tried making a slouch bag, but it didn't seem to really be what I wanted. Then I started my vintage crafting challenges, and found this magazine in my stash:

Vintage from 1988

It has a scattered fans tote bag pattern in it.

a selection of totes

I fell for that idea in a big way. I started by making fans. I didn't want blue and pink, but I do like the scrappy look of them, and the background fabric peeking through in places.

The pattern for the fans and their placement

The pattern helped me visualize what I needed to do, but of course I wasn't working within a square, so I figured out roughly how many fans (or parts of fans) I would need, and some fabrics I liked, and cut the pieces of the fans out. Then I foundation pieced them with a quilt as you go method. I wanted them to be able to stand some wear! Once I was happy with how they looked on the background fabric, which I also used for the inside of the purse, I found some thin batting which would give the purse some body. I also cut side pieces for depth and shape of the purse. Then I worked on sewing it all together. 

Y'all, I'm going to take a moment here to talk about this machine. 

The Green Singer

She is the first sewing machine I owned. I got her for a present (Birthday? Christmas?) when I was maybe 12 or 13. She was not new then, but in those days she had a simple wooden cabinet which eventually rotted from around her, and I eventually had to take her out before she fell out, and throw that thing away. I got her serviced, and commissioned one of the wood workers at Cruces Creatives to make a box stand for her so I could use her again. This little workhorse will sew pretty much anything that will fit under the presser foot. My other Singer machine will do a lot of things, but it doesn't do that. This girl had no trouble sewing up the layers of that purse. She also does a great job with quilting when there get to be a lot of seams to stack.

Anyway, back to that purse... I made pockets with fan detailing on them to go inside.

Pockets for coupons, and chapstick, and...

And yes, the background/inside fabric is a batik. I love a batik. 

fans scattered on the outside

Finally I added the hardware. Clips for my keys again, taken out of the old purse and sewn into the new one. Another piece of belting for the strap (Thanks, Eva!). And she is ready to go!!

Ready for anything!

I'm counting this as a win for a vintage crafting challenge. Even though I didn't make the item in the magazine, it definitely is related to that tote, and I wouldn't have gotten to this purse if I hadn't found that magazine. I Love it!

Baby Booties Challenge

 

A preview of the project:

Baby booties are done!

My friend is looking forward to some grandchildren in the not-too-distant future, and was asking me if I had any baby crochet patterns among the myriad of resources that I have. She wanted to get a head start on a baby project or two. So I looked, and found

A book of baby patterns to crochet.

Thumbing through the book, I found quite a few really cute patterns and thought this would be a good place for a crochet challenge. It isn't really vintage, like the magazines I have stored up, but, still a good opportunity to try something I haven't done before. It doesn't hurt that I can put the results toward an excellent baby shower gift.

This book has some very cute options in it, which I will explore more at the end of this post, but I'm going to focus on the challenge item first.

A cute collection of booties

The included patterns offer a variety of baby booties, including these. The yarn I had on hand was white with a pink fleck in it, so I was drawn to these in particular:

The Rose Booties

Cute, right? A couple of comments about the book in general. Notice that the print is a good size for easy reading. Also, the binding is a ring binding, which allows the book to stay open to the page you are working from. Good job, publisher!

On to the crochet. The pattern was pretty easy to follow, but the booties are constructed from several pieces, sewn together. I will admit to having some issues with that. Mostly, they are issues of practice and taking care to find the correct start to the joining of the pieces, but still.

So my first booty, even after trying a couple of times to get the sole attached to the sides is rather wonky.

Ummm. Is it supposed to look like that? NO!

The second attempt went better. (See, a matter of practice.) But I'm still not loving it. I just don't know why they need so many pieces!

Definitely better, but not perfect

And, no, it isn't quite finished, and might never be, honestly. I never did get to the roses. On the other hand, I did find out the the little skeins of thread were enough to make at least two booties. Back in the day when I knitted some pairs of socks, I needed a skein for each sock, so I wondered whether that would be the case for these. I had plenty of yarn for the pair in one skein, though.

Well, for my third attempt, I kinda went off the rails and adapted the pattern to be made in one piece. I had to sew the instep down, but it was connected in the right place, and I could work up into the stocking part either before or after I sewed the sides. 

My third attempt at booties - the keepers

My take on this book, and the booties? Well, I think that I could still do a better job on them, but the last ones are definitely usable as they are (more practice is in order, I guess). The pattern took me a few tries to get closer to their intended result, and I'm not done trying for the perfect result. Particularly how they described attaching the sole to the sides. It just looked weird in my opinion, following the instructions in the way I understood them (which could be an imperfect interpretation, I freely admit). I may try one of their other patterns in a different part of the book to see if that is done differently.

I would also be willing to try some of the non-booty patterns in the book. This cute nautical sweater, for instance:

Adorable

There are also several blankets that I could happily revisit:

Cute take on a granny square

Using a variety of stitches

A different take on blocks

I don't know that I would go crazy crocheting a dress or something like that for a baby, but there are several patterns in the book for those who would. There are hats, and more sweaters (a more likely make than a dress for me) along with other blankets and it seems to be a really nice variety of items, and if it is going to be grandparent season among my friends, I could really get some use from the book!